the void screamed back
by aestheticsquad
Summary: that one night when our dumbasses brain thought it would be a good idea to call upon asano’s dead aunt through ouija board


an assclass fanfiction

inspired on a true story that someone once told

i do not own assclass

Miniature human skull. Half-burned white candle. A clear jar with rotten leaves. A broken pocket watch. Another human skull, cracked, real-sized.

"I feel like I'm in Harry Potter," Karma blurted as his eyes scanned the shelf full of sketchy things and other weird shit. "Is this material for witchcraft, are you really sure the board chairman is not the leader of some eldritch denomination?"

"Those were my aunt's possessions. We are getting rid of them at some point this weekend. Say, what was the name of the show Shiota'd recommended again?" Asano replied from the sofa. His thumb kept on pressing down the remote to surf the list of crime/thriller movies. It was Friday evening after school, and he had paid the subscription fee for Netflix recently. Tell me what's better thing to do.

The redhead's face scrunched up as he inspected one of the clear jar filled with shattered colored-glass. Or maybe marbles. Navy blue and emerald green. The transparent substance glistened vividly under the yellow lighting. His mom would love to have it for her kitchen decoration. "Why are you disposing them?"

Asano's sighed. "Because she's gone now. Say, what was the movie-"

"Gone where?"

Eventually did Asano turn his head from the flatscreen to the back of the living room. Of course Karma would be more interested toward the chaos happening on one of his shelf. No matter how you look at it, those were positively necessaries for dark arts. It wasn't as if his aunt— his father's younger sister— was psychiatric. She was merely passionated over shadowy stuff. Speaking frankly, obsessed, but not to the extend of fanatic. She owned an antique shop and supported her living from its earnings. She managed the shop single-handedly ever since her husband's passed away four years prior.

Alas, last summer was the highest death toll caused by rainfall that Japan had seen in the last three decades. Rivers bursted from the banks and Okayama prefecture got the worst fortune. Asano's aunt was one of the victim. She was stuck in the basement of the warehouse when the flood hit the city.

Asano, now sitting on the carpet next to the redhead, closed his eyes while remembering. "My mother had forewarned her to evacuate higher up to the north. But her thickhead answered 'little water won't hurt no one, Merinda' and afterwards we received the news that she had drowned," he explained, voice straight, deadpan. Not a single tone of grief was expressed as though he had expected the tragedy to happen.

The blond looked up to the pile of stuff and took out one of the hardcover book. It was thick, yellow, and untitled. The cover displayed no more than a pattern of lines and triangles. His fingers leafed through the pages. "For some reasons," he carried on. "The government sent her leavings here. Mom was upset about these junk taking up space— what in the heck is this language anyway?"

Karma squinted his eyes at the opened page. Not even an alphabet. "I think that's Japanese but in the font Wingdings. Your aunt's mental."

Perhaps she was indeed in need of a psychologist. Asano slammed close the book and threw it back into the load. "Take anything," he said while standing up. "It will help the clean up."

For a moment, he thought he saw Karma's eyes brightened with sparks, in the same way as a kid who received a birthday party surprise. Hence, the redhead began to examine the stuff one by one, almost immediately, from the corner to the other corner, collecting object that caught his attention. The jar with shattered marbles, the book in Wingdings, the cracked human skull. He stacked them up next to him. Asano wondered how he would take them home.

Karma rolled to one side of the shelf and pulled carton box filled with even more untitled, hardcover books. It was strange how there wasn't any sign of wet paper regardless of the flood. In defiance, they were undusted. He hauled those up to see if there was something different at the bottom of the box. He was right. Little did they knew how they wished he'd been wrong later on.

A flat board, printed with letters, numbers, and other symbols. A "yes", a "no", a "hello", also a "goodbye". A small heart-shaped piece of wood fell onto the ground.

Stunned, Karma gaped in surprise. His amber eyes grew even wider as he hold up the board with his hands. He turned to the other boy whose got his brow knitted to a furrow. Both trying to react but words left their mouth soundless. This thing. This exact fucking thing. It's the Ouija board. The Ouija fucking board.

The vintage grandfather-clock in the living room dinged, breaking the silence, causing both of them to jolt in surprise. The deep sound echoed throughout the massive, western-styled house. Another ding, they were finally able to blink.

"Do you want to ask whether or not you have chance to marry the Emperor Naruhito's daughter?" Karma said in one breath, his voice was a loud whisper.

Asano rolled his eyes, sighing again. He took another view at board. Head shakes. "I'm not touching any of those," he said.

Karma's lips formed a smirk. He arose from the floor with the board, picked up the piece of wood, and walked toward the coffee table. He laid the board there before settling himself on the sofa. "Come on, Asano-kun," he begged. "Just to see if it's genuine?"

"Ghost are not real, Akabane."

"So no reason to be scared, right?"

Right? Right. Anything supernatural were in opposition of Asano's belief, not as in religion, but science. Ghost, demon, witches, magic, and all in the same kind, were not something existent to his standpoint. In that case, if they did try to use the board, nothing would to occur.

"Once, please?" Another beg. His head slightly tilted down. Puppy eyes. Then again, he knew an Asano wouldn't buy mere pleads. Thus, he included an offer. "I will wait in line to buy you that famous angel cake from the station."

That wait would be about an hour long and one would have to rush there after school because it's closed on weekend. The cakes always got sold out before four. Asano needed solid ten seconds to make decision. "You owe me on Monday," he said, sitting down at the other end of the sofa. "And if anything happens after this, you better be responsible."

"I'm a man of my words," Karma promised.

The sun hadn't sunk completely yet, but all the lights at the first floor were on. Asano's mom wouldn't be back until nine and that the housekeeper didn't drop in that day. The atmosphere in the house felt blank, too much room for two. They could hear the wind outside, making noise with the branches of trees.

"So," Asano clapped his hand. "What's the first thing first? Should we burn candles?"

Karma hummed then shook his head. "Your house is creepy enough as it is. Like, straight from Insidious."

Each of them placed a finger on the heart-shaped pointer. Karma insisted to slide it around so that it could "warm up", which Asano thought would be unnecessary since the so-called spirit was said to be capable on getting the pointer moving. But they did anyway, clockwise.

The redhead began. "If there's anyone here who wishes to make contact, you can talk to us through this board."

Nothing.

"You can answer 'yes' or 'no'," he continued, sliding the pointer to demonstrate. "You can use alphabet, from A to Z. I'm sorry it's in romanji instead of hiragana. There's also numbers from zero to nine. I hope you don't speak in Herbew or Thai."

"That's totally unnecessary."

"Oh, shut up, Asano-kun. You ain't even doing no shit."

They then slid the pointer and stopped at the centre of the board. Still nothing. They exchanged stares and remained silent, hoping for any kind of respond. They still heard the wind outside, stronger. The weather channel had announced it would rain tonight. They also heard the tick-tock from the wall-clock, it seemed louder than before.

"Is anybody there?" Asano became impatient. He felt stupid now that he had accepted the offer. "You can move this wooden pointer so that we know that you are there."

Not a single thing. "Maybe we should asked for someone specific?" Karma suggested. "They might be confused about whom we are asking to be presented."

Asano hummed, curling his lips at the idea. "Okay then," he said before inhaling a long breath. "Aunt Tsubaki, we wish for you to be presented."

The power went out. They had every single light at the first floor on and everything went pitch black. They knew the wind was crazy but it hadn't rained yet. Karma was hissing bunch of cuss Asano wasn't able to distinguish. Asano himself was pretty sure he was shook enough to shit his pants but all he knew was swinging his arms around like a tentacles in order to located for the other boy. He thought he grabbed him by the collar.

"I shit you not this isn't one of my prank!" Karma was close to yelling as Asano drew him near. A slight relief that it was truly his collar that he grabbed.

Asano shushed him, his hand flied to cover Karma's mouth, or maybe his entire face, whatever worked since they couldn't see, anything to stop that guy from screaming. "Where's your phone?" Asano asked, his voice strained but low. "We need to check the main switch but I don't remember where's the flashlight."

Turned out Karma left his cell plugged up at the phonetable near entrance. Asano's phone was in his bedroom upstairs, inside his school satchel. He didn't take it with him when he came down. With that, they decided to get Karma's instead.

As time passed, both boys' view adjusted to the dark. However, the hall somehow was even darker than the living room. Maybe because there was no window. They headed to the front entrance in slow pace. Every steps made rubbing sound, cotton slipper to the tiled floor. The air seemed tight, it weighed them down in the chest. Nothing interrupted their breathing, but their breath was short and rapid.

Before they could reach the phonetable, they halted. Someone was knocking on the door. Three knocks. Knuckles onto the wood. Karma clutched Asano arm by instinct. There shouldn't had been any visitor at the moment, not tonight as Asano could swear. His Mom would be out until nine, and his Father until midnight.

Knock,

knock,

knock.

Constant, questioning, the kind of knock that requesting an excuse to come in.

"Mom?" Asano called, unsure yet hopeful.

The knock got louder. Three knocks. Then another three. Demanding. Both knew it wasn't his mom or any goddamn visitor, let alone real human beings. Knocks turned into debt-collector banging now that it knew the two boys were standing behind the door.

"For fuck's sake, who's there?!" Karma finally got the balls to shout, his voice loud and cracked.

The banging stopped. Dead silent. So quite their ears began to ring. Karma immediately grabbed his phone and pulled it so harshly that the cable would have got ripped if the power adapter hadn't had came off the wall.

He slid the phone unlocked. 07:28 pm. The screen was blazing from the maximum brightness. Karma aimed the white light towards Asano, who's upright behind him with a goddamn swimming pool noodle as a weapon. The redhead was already too messed up to make fun of it.

Saying nothing, they proceeded to the kitchen to check the main power of the house. The curtain was open, so the kitchen wasn't as shady. But it wasn't lit because of the lamp. The lamppost outside was also out. Mind you, the Asano's backyard was outspread that they could barely see the other buildings nearby. The light was sourced from the moon. It was faint yet sufficient. Had the moon always been this vivid before?

"The fuse's up. It isn't from this house, maybe it's the whole neighbourhood," Asano said. He had Karma's phone on one hand and the swimming noodle on the other. They needed to search for a proper flashlight soon since the phone battery was draining, especially since it was an Apple product. In spite of everything, the moon seemed to be reliable tonight in case they didn't accomplish to hunt out the flashlight.

Just when he turned around, Asano spotted the redhead shutting the curtain close. "What the heck, Akabane!" he shouted, rushing to grab the thick material of the drape from Karma's hand.

"No, you idiot! Don't!" Karma pulled the drape to prevent Asano from opening it back. "It doesn't—," he stuttered as he tried to fight the blond's strength. "It doesn't— it doen't— it DOES NOT feel safe!"

Asano released his grip and Karma fell back on his bottom. It didn't feel safe, no, it was not safe. Someone was at the front door. Were they still there? The only way to access the backyard was through the kitchen, but was there any other way? Asano couldn't remember since he's scarcely home. Or, precisely, he had hardly ever entered to his own house not by the front door. Was there any other way? Would they find their way to come through? To come in? To find them?

"Asano-kun."

Asano looked down to Karma, still perched on the floor. He noticed how the amber eyes of the redhead wasn't laid on him. It was shot pass him. Slowly did he turn his head, threading on the other boy's sight in which led him to other window. A smaller, screen-less casement that mounted the sink.

Somebody was peeking through. Full face pressed on the glass. Nails scratching the substance. With a hoarse voice,

"I. . . CAN . . . SEe . . . YOu."

They lost it. They were literally screeching curses and pouring sweat as they galloped to the next room over. Heart beating so fast, they were about to pass out. They didn't look at the direction of the window, but they were pretty sure it was all banging and screaming as they made their way to the Board Chairman's bedroom, Mr. Gakuhou.

As the blond remembered, his father kept an old rifle in the closet. He never learned how to use it. Well, he read, and played video games. Still, he had never truly held a real gun before, never with the intention of firing to god-knows what kind of entity outside. He was fifteen! He didn't need firearm, especially to sniped at some kind of creature defying the law of physics. He passed the weapon to Karma.

The redhead was stunned. "Mine was G36C, this is a fucking M416 with an actual bullets in it, Asano-kun," he lodged a complaint. "I've never actually fired an actual gun! What the fuck, this ain't America!"

On spur of the moment, it came to their attention how bitterly freezing this dark-ass room was and how a chilly breeze was tickling their neck. They went to check and yes, the window was fucking wide opened.

Asano couldn't move anymore, his face had lost its color long ago, and now his limbs gave up. He held the swimming noodle tighter to his chest. Karma wasn't a bit less afraid. He knew he gotta close the window even if he didn't want go near it. If he went through this, he would probably die. Yet if he didn't go through this, they both most likely would die.

Swallowing the fear, the redhead bolted toward the window. Rifle on his arms. He reached out his hand to catch a hold of the handle but it's an old house so it took a good amount of power to shut it. For your information, Mrs. Asano had this big plantation field right in front of the house. When Karma looked out the window, he swore to god he saw somebody standing out on the edge of the field.

Asano tossed the phone from across the room, and Karma shone the flashlight to the field. Before he got the chance to see who the fuck was that, the figure started to flee in the direction of the house. The window was still not closing.

Karma hurriedly picked up the shotgun and began to pull the trigger but it WAS NOT firing. This person was 10 feet away from the window and wouldn't stop. His dumbass threw the fucking rifle to the whoever it was and grabbed Asano by his arm, closed the door behind them, and sprinted to the living room, where they first pitched in.

"It's the ouija board, isn't it?" Karma asked but it wasn't a question.

"No shit." Asano had never uttered so much profanity in one day.

The redhead sighed. "We are probably gonna die tonight. Look, there's a light outside, coming toward this house. Maybe that's the way to the heaven."

Asano narrowed his eyes to the window before screamed his heart out, "Holy shIT THAT's HEADLIGHTS!!!!!!!"

Somebody outside! Asano raced to open the curtain and saw a big-ass F-250 truck in front of the driveway. That's the old white man who lived on the other side of this parent's property, Mr. Hall. It's him and his fucking wife. They probably wanted to check if the Asano's power was out too.

Both of them just ran out of the house, practically screaming and shit, telling the old man all the story like in seven seconds. Mr. Hall told them to stay in the truck with his wife as he pulled out a pistol and a flashlight from the dashboard and headed for the house.

Karma noticed the window in the room they were just in was closed now. He told the man's wife that somebody was definitely in the house at the moment and she was literally wailing at him to get out the house but he was not answering. She called 911 and made them send every available officer this town.

After the call ended, this man finally came out the house, hurrying back to the truck. He said all rooms were pitch black and it was so cold. He asked if the windows were open which it weren't, but the curtains were open in the living room, and the moonlight was bright enough to lit a dim light. Mr. Hall said he really couldn't see anything, not even in the living room. Both boys stared at each other, saying nothing as the old man started the car and drove back to his own house. They waited for the police to show up.

The police searched the entire house and didn't find anything. No signs of forced entry. No scratches on the windows. No dents on the doors. The only thing they found was A LOT of water on the floor and in the halls. They asked the two boys if they had been playing in the water and they said no, why would they.

Mr. and Mrs. Asano arrived together at the Hall's one hour past midnight. Only a couple of police remained to retold the occurred event. The chairman didn't seem to be convinced although he didn't refute any part of the story. Mrs. Asano was bewildered. She insisted she had thrown away most of Aunt Tsubaki's stuff just before she left in the afternoon. About five hours before Asano and Karma winded up at the house.

The police did find the ouija board in the living room. They advised the Asanos and Karma to burn it, in which they did the next morning. Mrs. Asano also managed to call a pastor to cleanse the house. Everything came back to normal.

"Aunt Tsubaki didn't like children. But I don't think she meant to hurt us." Asano said, breaking the silence. Karma was by his side. They were sitting on the grass of the backyard, watching the housemaid cleaning up the ashes.

"I think she did come," the redhead replied. "That would explain the water. She drowned, didn't she?"

"Do you think she called the Halls?"

Karma shrugged. He recalled an article he'd read long ago, about how any spirit that was called upon ouija board would never be civil. In the end, nothing did he say in respond. Part of him wanted to believe it wasn't Aunt Tsubaki. He didn't want to have a history where he was nearly killed by the Asano's ancestor.

"What's that?" Asano noted a piece of wood nearby. He rolled to his side to reach it.

Piece of wood. Heart shape.

"The pointer," Karma gasped. He shook his head, blinking, as if the object would turn into something else when he did that. "It was supposed to be inside the board. Did it fall out?"

Asano was already too burnt out to rationalise any logic why the pointer was here. He held the pointer high toward the sky. The sky was blue, cloudless, unbeknownst of what had befallen last night. "Do you have the matches?"

Head shook. "Your housemaid used all of my stock to burn the board alone."

Asano curled his lips. "We can use the stove, but I don't feel like bringing this inside the house."

"Wait here then." Karma stretched his legs and arose. "I have a flamethrower inside my bag."

— fin.

rayi's note:

i was supposed to publish this on halloween but oh well, me being me. i really miss writing fanfiction.


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